


here in my arms is your place

by benzedrine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fuckbuddies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 10:36:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benzedrine/pseuds/benzedrine
Summary: Draco Malfoy takes coming and going far too literally for Harry’s liking.





	here in my arms is your place

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from don't by zoe kravitz (or elvis, i suppose). this feels kind of like a subpar echo of something i once read, actually, something i've written, as well. all faults are my own. but despite this negative description, i hope you enjoy this! :)

He still wants him, months later; he still feels that familiar ache, the absence. Draco Malfoy takes coming and going far too literally for Harry’s liking, but he’d rather have this broken stilted thing than nothing at all, would rather be on his knees at Draco’s feet than anywhere else, would rather be bent over his kitchen table with Draco pressing into him with hard, fast thrusts than in his soft bed. It’s fucked up, he knows, but he loves this. He loves the constant push and pull of having to maintain any interaction with Draco, loves the way that he knows how to grind at every single one of his gears. He knows he’s not the only one, but he also knows no one takes it quite like he does. No one gives back as good as they get from Draco – quite possibly, no one would dare.

Harry doesn’t mind the long, long months without hearing from Draco if he can have strings of nights where Draco fucks him like it means something, where he whispers secrets against Harry’s spine, where he licks sweat off of Harry’s skin and replaces it with dark, heavy bruises.

They don’t talk about the war. They don’t talk about all of the pills and potions Harry’s taking just to get through the day, and they _especially_ don’t talk about the bags of white powder Harry sometimes catches glimpse of when Draco’s dashing off to the bathroom after a shag. It makes Harry so sad sometimes, but he understands in a way. That, and the fact that he wouldn’t know how to help if he tried.

*

When Draco’s gone, Harry tries his best to fill in the gaps. He buys himself that weird expensive tea that Draco likes and fucks around with girls and men and anyone else he can find, though nothing is ever _quite_ right. No one ever manages to fuck him into oblivion, toeing the line between pleasure and pain so precariously. No one pushes back and arches into him as though he’s the best fuck they’ve ever had in the same way Draco does. No one manages to turn insults into compliments and vice versa, none of the wizards or witches quite manage to see past Harry’s fame, and none of the muggles understand all the ways in which he’s broken and scarred and reborn. He knows if he doesn’t at least try, though, it would be worse. He’s been on the receiving end of more than enough interventions from his friends and sneers from Draco and hangovers from drinking away his ~~sorrows~~ ~~loneliness~~ pain.

It’s unhealthy and, though he knows it, he can’t let go. Because sometimes Draco stays, stays for days, even weeks. Sometimes he wakes up and sees a sleeping Draco Malfoy laid out next to him, his hair a glowing beacon in the light of the morning sun, long and stretched out and so achingly beautiful Harry forgets how to breathe. The Draco that stays is so starkly different to the human hurricane Harry’s mind associates with mindless shagging and muggle drugs and years of animosity. The Draco who stays is so dangerously close to someone Harry could love.

*

When it finally hits Harry, he’s over three years into whatever it is that he and Draco have been doing. Draco had been staying more often, left numerous possessions at Grimmauld Place, spent almost a month with Harry just before his birthday, only to return the next month to give Harry his own birthday present (a line delivered with such a leer that Harry would have been able to decipher it had he been blind in a snowstorm).

His chest is tight and the rising fear crawling up and up his throat is far worse than anything he’d ever experienced in battle. He stumbles to the fireplace, shouting blindly into the flames as he steps through to Ron and Hermione’s home. He’s heaving out great, hacking sobs into their arms before he remembers that he hadn’t told Ron and Hermione about Draco (and why would he have needed to, his traitorous mind asks).

“I’ve been a bit thick,” he says, when he’s finally managed to swallow down the calming drought Hermione had shoved at him.

“Oh, Harry,” she says with a sigh, her hands rubbing circles on his back, “we were so hoping… We really didn’t want this to happen.”

Harry frowns at her, but Ron cuts in before he can get a question out. “Mate, I know you’re upset, but now’s as good a time as any to tell you what absolute shit you are at being sneaky. We just figured that you’d tell us about it when you were ready. And also you _are_ The Most Famous Wizard in Britain, you must know that a lot of rumours have some sort of truth to them.”

“And he was always a bit of a nutter when it came to Malfoy,” Hermione chimes in, “We can _never_ forget sixth year.”

And almost instantly, Harry feels that odd knot his stomach’s managed to twist itself into begin to ease. _This_ is love, he thinks, the easiness he has with his friends and how, despite having more than enough reasons to be upset with Harry, they still support him. He knows if he weren’t such a state he’d be getting an earful, but right now it’s easier to lean back and let himself be hugged by his friends, drink tea, watch bad films, and absolutely not allow himself to think about Draco Malfoy. He’s on the edge of sleep on their sofa when he thinks he hears, “I thought the pointy git said he was mad about Harry,” before he’s claimed by exhaustion.

*

Harry briefly toys with changing the wards to not let Draco in any more, and he knows Ron and Hermione would be supporting this decision in an instant over any of the other, rasher ones Harry had come up with in the past week. He decides, instead, to send a letter.

*

_Mrs. Malfoy,_

_I hope you are well, it’s been a while since our last correspondence, for which I’d like to apologise. I suppose you may already know the reasons (or reason, more precisely) I stopped responding to your letters. Which is what I’d like to talk to you about. I know that Draco visits with you frequently, and I was wondering if you would mind passing on a message for me? He’s rather hard for me to reach, but if you could let him know that I hope he’s well, too, and that I don’t think I can do this anymore._

_Yours truly,_

_Harry._

*

He’s not expecting the banging at his door three days later followed by a frustrated hiss and what sounds like a plant pot breaking.

When he leaves his room he’s struck by the sight of Draco, rumpled and gorgeous and so awfully, painfully unattainable.

“My mother, Potter? Really?” Is thrown out at him before he can even rub the sleep dust out of his eyes. “Salazar’s tits you must be far more oblivious than you ever were at school.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry hears himself ask, in a voice that isn’t his, a voice thick with sleep and loneliness and years of words left unspoken.

Draco’s pacing now, running his long fingers through his hair and glaring so fiercely Harry’s surprised something hasn’t caught fire yet.

“I’ve been trying, you dolt,” Draco spits out, “I’ve made it blindingly obvious, Merlin, I even went and spoke to Granger and Weasley, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days.”

 _Oh_ , Harry thinks, _oh_.

And then he realises. All this time he’d spent getting attached to Draco, all this time he’s spent fixating on the bits of Harry that are taken with Draco when he leaves, he’s never stopped to look at what Draco had left behind of himself. He tries to think back to the last time he had to deal with a Draco he was terrified about, a Draco who almost scared Harry into sending for Parkinson or Zabini or Draco’s mother or St. Mungo’s or _someone_ who could put _his_ Draco back together again. He remembers a playful, almost _happy_ Draco fucking him so slowly and carefully it was almost like he was trying to keep from breaking Harry, remembers a Draco who laughed at his jokes and poked fun at his clothes and how the gaps between his visits were getting shorter and shorter. He thinks about the Draco who ran and the one who stayed.

Oh.

“I didn’t –” he begins, before being cut off by a sharp, bitter laugh.

“No, I suppose you never do. Well, I guess I’ll be on my way, shall I? You made that quite clear in your letter to Mother.” He starts, as if to stride around the house searching for his things, before remembering the wand in his hand. He moves to cast and Harry’s breath is stolen, taken by something that reminds him that the Draco who stays and the Draco who goes are the same person and he can have them _both_ , that Draco’s trying to give him everything he’s tried so hard not to dream or, even, think about and that somehow, once again, Harry’s the one caught unawares.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, before he can convince himself it was a bad idea, and then they’re kissing, hard and fierce with too much teeth and not enough tongue, so he pulls away to say, “Merlin, I’m so fucking stupid, sometimes.”

Draco holds him close, tightly gripped between his long thighs, and says, his voice soft, and so close to shy that Harry wants to kiss him again, forever, “Yes, you are rather. But I still want to stay.”

Harry’s about to get back to being pressed up hot and close against Draco before he remembers, and asks, “Did you _really_ go to Hermione and Ron?”

Draco’s laugh rings clear and true, “Yes, and it was every bit as awful as I’m sure you’re imagining it to have been. I swore them to secrecy, though, but I did get a Howler from Granger after you went over to see them. I don’t think I’m allowed to just shag you anymore,” he says, and Harry blanches, before he continues, “But it’s okay, because that’s not all I want.”

*

Later, when Draco’s curled up tight against next to him, Harry thinks about all the space Draco’s left and all the room he could fill, the cold winter nights they’ve shared and will share and how everything feels new and fragile and _right_. He thinks about all the years they’d spent fighting, both in school and out, all the bad dreams and the worse nights and the absolute brilliance of Draco Malfoy and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are much appreciated :)


End file.
